Financial Assistance for Families In Need

Financial assistance for families in need is available through several sources. These sources play an important role in providing help during hard times for countless families in the United States. Most are available from the government, which comes mainly in the form of short-term financial support. In today’s post, we will focus on providing you with information on government-based assistance for families in need. We acknowledge that there are various things the family needs, so we will try our best to cover those things as well as possible.

Financial Assistance for Families in Need

Food

Food is a basic need for every family. Low-income families may be able to find help from local community organizations and food pantries. Aside of the food pantries, nonprofits and churches often give out free food for those who are in need. Aside of that, you can also apply for the food stamps program, which is a federal program administered by the state or local government. Contact your local agency that takes care of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to learn about the eligibility or the requirements for the program.

Housing

Another basic need for every family is a place for shelter. Housings and rents are often too expensive for many people, but there is a program from the government that can be used to help these families cover the cost of house rentals, provide housing vouchers and even help paying a part of mortgage. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has the Section 8 Housing program for years. It is important to note that the combined family income is less than 50% of the median income of your area. To find out the exact amount of median income in your area, you should visit the HUD website.

Direct Financial Assistance

While the information we provide above offers an indirect form of financial assistance, there is a government program that provide a direct financial assistance for families in need. The program’s name is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Just like many assistance programs, this one is administered independently by each state, just like the Medicaid program. This means that there may be different perspective and regulation in each state. For example, some states require the combined family income to be more than 100% of the federal poverty level. But most of the states require that the family income should be less than 50% of the federal poverty level.

Just as the name suggests, this program is aimed to provide cash for a limited period of time. This is a program designed to help the family go through rough time and find new financial sources. Therefore, we don’t recommend you to use this assistance as your primary source of income.

Getting financial assistance is probably the best thing to do to provide temporary support for families in need. There are similar programs offered by private sectors, but usually there’s always a catch or they are frauds. Usually, nonprofits provide indirect financial assistance instead of giving you free money. You have to be careful when you are searching for assistance from a non-reputable sources. Reputable sources of help include NHSA, Angles of God Outreach, Single Mother Help, Rainbow Housing, etc.

References:

• Food Stamps – How to Apply for Food Stamps – http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbenefitprograms/a/foodstamps.htm
• Housing Choice Vouchers Fact Sheet – http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/hcv/about/fact_sheet
• Image: flickr.com